Lakeland College

MSOE explodes for six goals in second half to upend Lakeland men's soccer

Athletics - posted on 10/16/2012

The Lakeland College men's soccer team gave a scare to Milwaukee School of Engineering but the powerful Raiders erupted in the second half of a 6-2 win Tuesday afternoon in a Northern Athletics Conference match.

Lakeland held the lead at halftime and kept MSOE scoreless at the break, but the Raiders scored six times in the final 45 minutes to improve to 12-4 overall and 7-2 in the NAC. The Muskies meanwhile dropped to 2-12-2 overall and remained winless in conference with a 0-7-2 mark.

Lakeland scrapped and stayed in contact with the Raiders for much of the match. The Muskies possessed the ball little in the first half but withstood several early rushes by MSOE and then took the lead at the 28:01 mark when Logan Massey (Fr.-New Franken, Wis.) punched in a crossing pass from Farouk Dadzie (Jr.-Milwaukee, Wis.) for his first career collegiate goal.

The goal seemed to put MSOE on its heels, and Muskies made that lead stand up until halftime. The Raiders came out quickly in the second half, though, taking advantage of a mistake in the Lakeland defensive end to push the ball ahead and then scoring when Michael Skow cleaned up a rebound off the hands of goalkeeper Alex Piekarski (Sr.-Menasha, Wis.).

That goal came just 2:56 into the second half, and MSOE would take the lead in the 58th minute when Jordan Werner scored his 19th goal of the season, picking up another rebound off Piekarski for a 2-1 lead. The Raiders would add another goal just 2:10 later as Brad Meissner received a corner kick from Werner and in traffic got off a shot into the right corner of the net.

Lakeland was not done, and the Muskies tightened the game up again when Paul Elzinga (So.-Howards Grove, Wis.) headed in a gorgeous free kick from near midfield by Justin Blauert (Jr.-De Pere, Wis.) in the 72nd minute. Lakeland continued to hang in until the Raiders again pulled ahead by two when Logan Andryk stole a soft pass on the backline and scored to make it 4-2 at 77:09. MSOE would add two more goals in the final nine minutes, both times again getting free behind the Muskie defense for easy goals.

MSOE outshot Lakeland 21-8, including a 13-3 margin in the second half. Six different players scored goals for the Raiders, while Piekarski made four saves for the Muskies.

Lakeland is on the road this weekend when it faces Wisconsin Lutheran College on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. in an NAC match. The Muskies then travel again on Sunday, taking on the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh at 1 p.m. in a non-conference matchup.